Wheels - and deals - keep things moving.

• Position: Transportation industry

Air travel, ocean shipping and rail were all lively sectors in 1995, but the year may best be remembered for a death in the North Carolina transportation family. In July, Arkansas Best Freight Corp. bought Carolina Freight Corp., founded in Cherryville in 1932, for $142 million, then dismantled it.

Cause of death? According to analysts, years of rate wars compounded by high labor costs, an inefficient hub system and an off-the-interstate location. The end had been coming since 1987 as the company, which once employed 1,800 in Cherryville, eliminated dividends, cut jobs and pared costs but still slipped $70 million into debt.

As a whole, the state's 1,900 trucking companies carried about 5% less freight in 1995, reflecting a cooling economy, says Elbert Peters, president of the North Carolina Trucking Association. Employment was up 1.5% to 228,000 for the industry, including sales and manufacturing, and payroll was about $6.2 billion. Several new companies, including TNT Red Star Express Inc., Preston Trucking Co. and Saia Motor Freight opened Tar Heel terminals.

In Cleveland, N.C., Freightliner Corp. pushed production to 106 trucks a day. The nation's biggest truck manufacturer added 700 jobs, boosting employment to 1,800 at its biggest plant, where it has invested more than $80 million in two years.

The major airports put luster on a year that started dismally. Raleigh-Durham International bounced back after American Airlines closed its hub. The airport signed Midway Airlines and, later, Continental, Valujet and Air South. "Nobody would have believed it then, but it turned out good for the airport," says Rick Martinez, RDU public-affairs manager. "When American let go its stranglehold, we got tremendous interest from everybody else."

RDU averaged 300 daily flights by late in the year, only slightly less than in 1994. "Midway is replacing routes American held but also looking at cities American never served," Martinez says. The airline, which moved its headquarters from Chicago to Durham last year, has 85 daily flights and expects to add 60 in first-quarter 1996.

"One of the big ironies of 1995 is that we will be down to about 7 million passengers, compared to 9 million for the last four years, and yet the airport is jammed," Martinez says. "The majority of that 2 million difference were transfers who had little economic impact on the area."

Piedmont Triad International also weathered a scare when anchor Continental Airlines recorded a...